Deer hunters bring the dough while hunting for bucks

Michael Johnson cooks hamburgers on a grill at the Stonewall County Senior Citizens Center in Aspermont Tuesday Nov. 4, 2017. Saturday was opening day for deer season, a number of Big Country communities held special meals to welcome hunters.(Photo: Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News)Buy Photo

ASPERMONT - Nothing says opening day of deer season like buttermilk pie.

“It was really funny watching all the hunters go out with pies and cakes,” laughed Susan Rosenberg. She and her husband Dan own the Hungry Buzzard restaurant, which opened Saturday especially for deer season, which started the same day.

November hunting brings big business to the Big Country. Rosenberg said about 90 hunters came for their brisket lunch. Typically, the Hungry Buzzard only opens on Fridays.

“We have so many friends that are hunters, they wanted something for their people that were coming in,” she said, then her eyes widened. “They all showed up today.”

A table full of baked goods was set up in the restaurant, Stephenia Mullen said she refilled it at least once. They were being sold to raise money for a nonprofit animal shelter and boarding facility.

“We are about three-quarters of the way done,” she said. “It will be run by volunteers and strictly on donations.”

Down the street in front of the Stonewall County Senior Citizens Center, the large round grill set up in the back of a flatbed trailer dwarfed Yvette Alexander. About sternum-high for her, she and Michael Johnson took turns flipping hamburger patties and toasting the buns over a mesquite fire.

“We get a lot of hunters,” she said. “This weekend, Thanksgiving week, around Christmas, and then around the first of the year when the season end, that’s when it’s busiest.”

That’s not counting the youth season, which had already started in October and will continue into January, she added.

“It's a very active hunting community,” Hill said. “We wanted to show the hunting community that we really appreciate them. They bring a lot to the economy of this town.”

Many hunters have been coming for years, such as Dallas residents Bill and Irma Miller.

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Irma and Bill Miller talk about deer hunting during a special lunch at the Stonewall County Senior Citizens Center in Aspermont Saturday Nov. 4, 2017. The Millers came from Dallas for the weekend. Saturday was opening day for deer season, a number of Big Country communities held special meals to welcome hunters.(Photo: Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News)

“Like the hurricane,” she quipped. “We like to hunt, I just started deer hunting three years ago.”

She was younger then, 75 to be exact. Her husband is 80 and recalled seeing John F. Kennedy drive by within five feet of him in Dallas during his ill-fated motorcade.

Last year, Irma scored a trophy buck with a down-turned tine on his antlers.

“Our other hunters, who had been to Africa few times and Mongolia to hunt elk, she outdid him,” Bill said, chuckling. “That's what all the hunters want. To me, I don't care that much. She shot one and he’d been looking for 40 years and never gotten one.”

The couple enjoys getting away from Dallas. Sometimes they’ll even take in a football game.

“What's amazing are the six-man games. I've never seen one until about three years ago,” Bill said. “I mean, it is different. When somebody gets tackled, you see it.”

He’d watched Knox City once play a local rival and was impressed by the turnout.

“It was like the Cotton Bowl, everybody in town was there,” he said. “It's really different than in the big city where you've got helicopters flying overhead, and the police chasing people.”

Bill said they would head back home Sunday night. They hadn’t gotten anything yet, though they did spy a six-point buck.

“This is a one-buck county; one deer and that's it. We don’t shoot does,” he said. “So, you don't normally shoot the first one you see.”

He added that the full moon wasn’t helping. Isn’t it called the Hunter’s Moon?

“Yeah, but it's not the Deer Moon,” he said. “You need to be out there in the dark.”